All the roads and camps around Ypres are under a heavy, harassing fire once more, Ypres itself being savagely bombarded by high-explosive and gas shells, so that after some months of respite those poor ruins are again under that black spell which makes them the most sinister place in the world. Suicide Corner has come into its own again, and the old unhealthy plague spots up by the canal are under fire. The enemy's guns are reaching out to fields and villages hitherto untouched by fire, and these harassing shots, intended, perhaps, to catch traffic on the roads or soldiers' camps, often serve the enemy no more than by the death of innocent women and children. A day or two ago a monstrous shell fell just outside a little Flemish cottage tucked away in an angle of a road which I often pass. It scooped out a deep pit in the garden without even scarring the cottage walls, but two children were playing in the garden and were laid dead beside a flower bed. Yesterday a small boy I know went grubbing about this plot of earth and brought back a great chunk of shell bigger than his head. Those are the games children play in this merry century of ours. They are astoundingly indifferent to the perils about them, and sleep o' nights to the thunder of gunfire not very far away, or slip their heads under the bedclothes when bombs fall near. But older folk find this gradual creeping up of the war a nervous strain and a mental agony which keeps them on the rack. It is pitiful to watch their doubts and perplexities and their clinging on to their homes and property. Shells smash outlying cottages to dust with their people inside them, but still the people in the village itself stay on, hoping against hope that the Germans' guns have reached their furthest range. "I shall not go till the first shell falls in the middle of the square," said a girl. Another woman said: "If I go I lose all I have in life, so I will risk another day." They take extraordinary risks, and our officers and men find some of them on the very battlefields and in farmyards where they unlimber their guns. Heavy German Losses The enemy's losses in this continual fighting have been severe. We have been able to get actual figures of some of their casualties, which are typical of the more general effect of the British fire. Of one company of the 7th German Division which fought at St. Eloi on Friday only 40 men remained out of its full strength of 120. The 4th Ersatz Division lost most heavily, and a prisoner of the 279th Pioneer Company, which relieved the 360th Regiment of that division, says the average company strength was fifteen men. The entire regimental staff was killed by a direct hit of a British shell on their headquarters dugout near Cantieux. The same thing happened to the battalion headquarters of the 223d Regiment, which is now in a state of low morale, having been fearfully cut up.